The Binary Circumstance

Julie Leung points to a site called Voices of Bainbridge Island that features recorded events and interviews related to island life.

Quoted from the “about” page:

Voices of Bainbridge Island (VOBIS) is an adventure into sound and Internet. It is intended to bring verbal information of interest to the community of Bainbridge Island about ourselves, to share with the world what is Bainbridge and the words spoken by others in the world that are of interest to us.

I was able to listen to portion of three interviews and noticed a large variance in sound quality, some too loud another too soft. A couple of links didn’t work, which may have just been a temporary server error.

It’s a wonderful idea, however. Listening to the actual voices of individuals speaking about their ideas is far more intimate and informative than just reading quoted words on a page or a web site.

Philippe Boucher is the interviewer. Great French name and a wonderful accent to go with it.

Check it out. I expect we’ll be seeing many more sites like this in the future.

You won’t be seeing any other sites just like The Binary Circumstance Online Store, though.

While I disagree with many of the basic premises of the Democratic Party, and I believe that many of the policies that John Kerry is proposing will be harmful, I would have to rate his performance tonight at the convention as spectacular.

His speech (full text) was extremely well-written and he delivered it with a passion and conviction that I had no idea he possessed. It was exactly what he needed to do.

It is perhaps the fact that he did exactly what he needed to do at this moment that impresses me, even more than the speech itself. I think that is the mark of a man who has the ability to lead, inspire and command repect. Those are all qualities sorely lacking in the current president.

While Kerry and others have repeatedly told us that while in Vietnam he did exactly what he needed to do to save his own life and the lives of his men, tonight he demonstrated that he could do exactly what he needed to do to save his campaign and breathe new life into his party just when it was needed most.

I didn’t hear the whole thing but I think I caught most of the second half. I never imagined that he had it in him.

When I just logged onto AOL, one of their insta-polls showed that about 58% of 2,500 voters thought his speech was excellent as opposed to good, fair, or poor. (the next highest percent was about 14%.) Over 60% said they thought he would be a better president that George Bush. The reason I mention this is that AOL voters in those polls tend to be very conservative. It will be interesting to see how the results change as more people vote.

I long-ago decided that I would never vote for George Bush, who is without a doubt the worst president I’ve seen in my lifetime. Tonight was the first night I actually thought seriously about voting for Kerry rather than not voting at all.

But even though his speech was good, I won’t be wearing any Kerry-Edwards T-shirts. Not when I can buy my own stuff at The Binary Circumstance Online Store.

The rumors that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston purchased a home on Bainbridge Island continue to circulate. While I have felt the story is purely rumor, I spoke yesterday to a local businesswoman who speaks to many more people on the island than I do, and she says that based on her “sources” it may in fact be true.

But she also told me that Treasure Island (a tiny island off the coast of Bainbridge) is located someplace where it isn’t.

[Remember: Things either exist or they don’t. What exists is true, what doesn’t exist is false. So can a person who thinks an island is someplace where it isn’t be considered a reliable judge of what is true?]

And now there’s this: Pitt and Aniston Find an English Village

At this point it seems clear that there’s an island theme to these rumors. Bainbridge is an Island, Treasure Island is an island off of Bainbridge and England is an island. They just differ greatly in scale. There’s also the family theme. They’re looking for a place to raise their kids.

But, no matter where you run into Brad and Jennifer, whether it’s on an island in the U.S., England, China, Africa or anyplace else in the world, you would be well-advised to be sporting some stylish and thought-provoking clothing or merchandise from The Binary Circumstance Online Store. The binary circumstance is universal.

It’s another very warm, dry day in the Seattle area. I think I need a pool.

I broke down and watched some of the Democratic Convention last night, mostly because I wasnted to see what Teresa Heinz Kerry had to say. I was disappointed.

She started out interesting and I’ve always thought she’s a very intelligent and interesting woman. But then her speech just descended into typical liberal bromides, pretty much the same sort of rhetoric I heard from some of the earlier speeches.

Ron Reagan was much more interesting, thought I think he’s greatly overselling stem-cell research and I don’t care how many people with serious illnesses may potentially benefit from it, it’s not something that should be dictated by government one way or the other.

I thought it was a huge coup for the D’s to have the son of the recently desceased and canonized Republican president there. While he tried to pretent that he wasn’t making a speech about voting Democratic, if he’s advocating for us to vote in favor of stem-cell research then he’s telling us who his choice will be for president.

The whole thing just left me in a down mood, which is why I had been avoiding it in the first place.

I won’t be watching tonight.